


the city in which i love you

by sunnyeols



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Friendship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT)-centric, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28687239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnyeols/pseuds/sunnyeols
Summary: Months pass. Love stands still as Mark waits.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34





	the city in which i love you

On a sunny day of August, Mark learns that big cities don't grieve the death of one. 

He accompanied his father to the hospital countless of times but the city noise never grows familiar to him. People are always chasing something there, clawing out spaces for themselves, fast paced. Crowded trains and radio buzz. Sleep deprivation and bone deep hunger. It terrifies Mark, more than it excites him.

As his aunt sorts out the paper works in the city, eyes lidded with exhaustion, Mark takes out his only suit and carefully presses an iron to every edge and crease.

They lay his father to rest in the soil of the land where he was born.

Mark tries his best to mold himself into the empty space his father left for him. He knows this field and their house like the back of his hand, can map it out on his palm with the confidence of a bird in the sky. Being alone doesn't sit well in his stomach. There have always been two coffee cups on the table, two rain boots at the door, two everything.

They say that there's an equation on how lonely we are, as a species. The world shifts on its own axis; a movement so grand, wielding the tidal changes and the thunderstorms. Mark wonders if loneliness tastes the same as freedom.

"How are you doing, dear?" His aunt, Joohyun calls him a few days later. Mark plays with the telephone cord, twisting it between his fingers and lets it uncurl.

"Good," he tells her. Mark saw it coming. Death clung to the way his father heaved out his dinner in the sink, lingered around and taunted Mark endlessly.

"Really? Glad to hear that."

Mark awkwardly clears his throat, not knowing what to say. As he remains silent, Joohyun sighs.

"Look, I'd love to stay with you, Mark, but," Her words are clear and sharp, Mark understands what she means. Joohyun's life is _rooted_ in the city. She has no time for pulling out weeds.

"No, it's fine, aunt Joohyun. I'll be fine on my own."

She calls him every week to check up on him. Mark wonders if it's a chore for her.

Mark puts on his work gloves and picks tomatoes for the farmers' market in early September. Some of them haven't fully ripened yet, and Mark skips them, moving to another row. His father would start preparing for the farmers' market weeks before, picking out what to display for sale.

Mark lifts and twists and they roll onto his open palm. He puts the tomatoes in a basket and hoses them off for a good measure.

Mark realizes that he hasn't talked to anyone for a while when aunt Joohyun misses their weekly call. He moves his tongue around, runs it over his teeth and talks to the mirror.

The nearest market is fifteen minutes walk away from his house, as Mark discovers. His father preferred to do everything himself. Baked breads, made jams, planted vegetables, bought meat directly from cattle farmers.

There also used to be a rooster and a few hens at the farm but Mark sold them off for his father's medicine. He misses them, sometimes.

"Are you not going to ring them up?" Mark asks the boy behind the counter, who in turn, just laughs at him. All cheeks. No mocking.

"We don't do that here. This is a _countryside_. Are you new here?"

Mark shakes his head. The boy calculates the total on a piece of paper and shows it to him.

"But don't worry, we'll have a fancy cashier machine soon! I'm Yangyang and my parents opened this shop, like, like three months ago," he says and takes out a plastic bag. "Hope to see you around."

Mark politely smiles, not bothering to introduce himself back.

It's raining outside.

Mark leaves his muddy sneakers at the door and places the groceries on the counter, shaking fat water droplets away from his hair. He thinks that he sees a figure sitting on the couch, with a book on their lap, just like his father after a long, tiring day. He turns on the living room light and the lamp flickers and buzzes before lighting up. Nothing's there.

The sound of telephone ringing cuts through the air, shrill and urging. Mark swallows and picks up the receiver.

"Aunt Joohyun. Hello."

Nobody else would call him, anyway.

"Hi, Mark. I couldn't call you last week, work got in the way," she pauses for a moment, "tough clients, you know. How are you?"

Raindrops thunder against the window and Mark peers at his vegetable field. He has spread a new layer of mulch around the soil last month, so it'll be fine no matter how much it rains, he figures.

"Better," Mark says. Joohyun's voice sounds light and feathery.

"Have you ever considered moving to the city? Sell the house. It would help with the bank loan, too."

Knife to the chest. Sore spot.

"No, I-" Mark trips over his words, "I won't move. From here."

There's a ring of finality to it. He's not sure if he likes it or not.

"Then, at least, rent out some rooms. Put up a vacancy sign." Joohyun pushes and Mark thinks for a moment before settling down to quietness. Pitter patter.

"I'm just trying to look after you, Mark. Aren't you lonely?"

Mark looks at the couch again, slightly unnerved. Whenever there was a thunderstorm, his father would tell him that lightnings will make milks sour and eggs rotten. Mark has always brushed it off as a silly superstition, but now, for a fleeting moment, he wonders if it's actually true.

"I'm not a child anymore. I can manage it on my own."

His eyes travel to the framed picture of his father and he murmurs a promise of calling her back before hanging up.

September eventually rolls around. Mark takes out the table and the stand from the storage room and counts days until the farmers' market. He knows every process inside and out, his father made friends with neighboring farmers and they are nice to him; Mark has _nothing_ to worry about, but there's something in his throat he just can't quite swallow down.

Maybe, it's the bitter taste of finally accepting he's all alone now.

He's running low on money, too. Maybe, that's that.

On the first day of the farmers' market, Mark places his table near the entrance of a big tent, the proclaimed center of the market, and unloads his baskets and tubs full of vegetables from his small truck. Well, his father's truck, but he figures it's his now. Mark's limbs move on their own accord without thinking, the movements engraved in his body. He's done this many times before.

Old Man Choi waves at him, his cigarette smoke disappearing in the air above and Mark waves back. Muscle memory.

"Hey, it's you!

Mark whips his head around and squints, coming face to face with Yangyang. The tent is packed with people, Mark's not surprised to find him here.

"We have a cashier machine now, by the way," Yangyang says and takes a tomato from one of the baskets, tossing it so high up that Mark almost expects him to fail at catching it. He doesn't.

"Nice," Mark says, not to anything in particular and Yangyang beams up at him before returning the tomato to its basket.

"Tell me your name."

A lady comes up to them, asking to buy courgettes and Mark busies himself with it. She talks about how much it has been raining this year, how the plant roots must be all soaked and he replies with practiced ease, nodding along. Yangyang silently presses up to his side, holding open a plastic bag for Mark to put the courgettes in.

"Are you playing hard to get?"

"No. I just haven't interacted with anyone for the past month. My social skills are all rusty."

Yangyang cocks his head to the side, amused. No mocking.

Mark studies the faint tan line on his neck and tells Yangyang his name.

He, as Mark learns, is an easy company to be around. Yangyang jokes and prods, but he doesn't pry, doesn't ask questions. At some point of the day, he returns to his parents' stand to help them out with the costumers and Mark is left alone, silently holding onto Yangyang's promise to be back.

"Now, you see this."

Yangyang scoops up a spoonful of jam and puts it into a bowl. It makes an ugly plopping noise and Mark stifles down a laugh, fanning himself with his shirt.

"What are you doing?"

"This is my personal remedy for sickness," he says, adding water onto the jam and holds it up to Mark's nose. "Heals any kind of pain. Call me whenever you're sick. I'll make you my infamous recipe."

"You won't want to be around when I'm sick. I get really moody. Might fling you across the room."

Yangyang's eyes are twinkling. "We'll see about that."

On the first day of October, Yangyang helps Mark paint a vacancy sign. The tables and the stands are already back in the storage room, and won't be out to see the sun until next year.

"Did you know that a hard frost in September means that there won't be another frost until the end of October?" Yangyang says, tongue peeking out as he goes over the letters again with a paintbrush smeared in black. Mark calls him a nerd.

"Are you opening a bed and breakfast or something?"

"I don't know," Mark confesses. "I just want to rent out a few rooms. I could use some extra cash right now."

He doesn't mention the bank loan looming over him. It's a small amount, compared to some, but he's not sure if he could even pay it back on time.

Mark tried his best but the money was still not enough for his father's treatment.

"All done." He holds up the sign. "It looks quite good, if I do say so myself."

Yangyang is, in fact, excellent with his hands. When Mark voices this out, Yangyang tells him that he dreams of becoming a violinist someday.

His first guest comes in the shape of a young boy with silk shirt and expensive coat. Rushed knocks and hushed whispers. Mark gets up from his spot on the couch and stretches, his book abandoned on the coffee table.

"I'm sorry, I know it's late. But I saw the vacancy sign and..."

The hallway light flickers on.

"No problem." Mark stumbles, looking for the right word. "It's a guesthouse for a reason."

It sounds different once you say it out loud. This house was a home, home to him and his father; with spare bedrooms that had nothing but a bed and a ghost at best. But now, it's a guesthouse. People will be here.

Mark takes out a brand new logbook from his drawer and watches the stranger pick up the pen and swirl a well practiced cursive _"Lee Donghyuck"_ on the paper. It's not even that late. Mark is used to staying up.

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

Donghyuck pockets his gloves, wine red, and nods. He pays in cash and books the room for a week.

"The nearest market is fifteen minutes walk away. People sell their stuff there. Eggs and milk. There are other houses and other farmers but we're not exactly neighbors, because of the distance, you know?" Mark jams his hands into his jeans pockets. One of them has a hole at the bottom. "At least not in the traditional sense. We don't get to see each other often. Only if we need to buy stuff."

"No neighborhood association?" Donghyuck sits down on the grass.

"Yeah. No neighborhood association."

Mark is curious about him, but he doesn't dare to ask. As Donghyuck nods and smiles up at him, his heart palpitates, eighty kilometers an hour.

Yangyang drops by the next day. Donghyuck didn't come down for breakfast so Mark lets Yangyang eat the omelet he made.

"I dropped out of college," he says, in one rushed breath while cutting the omelet in half with a fork. Mark takes his washing gloves off, eyebrows furrowing, and waits for him to continue.

"The tuition was too expensive, anyway. Maybe I'll leech off of my parents until I turn thirty. And move to the city, then."

Mark drizzles a dish soap on the frying pan and Yangyang finishes his omelet in silence.

"It's okay," Mark tentatively says, after a while. He can only imagine what colleges are like. Big city, big enough to swallow him whole and spit him back out. Metropolis noises.

"Do you plan on moving from here?"

Mark hums. "Maybe I will."

"I'll move if you decide to move too," he whispers as a loud thud resonates upstairs, followed by a sound of someone cursing. Yangyang raises his eyebrows.

"You have someone over?"

"A guest."

"I thought it was a ghost."

Mark laughs. "Don't get too excited. Help me with preparing the field for spring seeding."

He puts his dish in the sink and rests his head on Mark's shoulder. "Isn't it too early for that?"

Marks dries off his hands on his shirt. Maybe his washing gloves have a hole somewhere. His hands are still getting wet.

"Winter's long and hard. You wouldn't believe."

Yangyang hops back and grins, flashing all of his teeth. "That's what she said."

The thing is, Mark didn't actually believe her when Joohyun said she'll come visit, sometime soon. But here she is, with little lonely lines around her eyes, looking more weary than ever. Mark doesn't really remember when her birthday falls around or how old she even is.

"Mark," she greets, her voice flat. "How have you been?"

Joohyun seems to notice the extra set of shoes at the door. "Someone around?"

"Yeah."

Mark takes out the shiny teacups from the cupboard and brings them to the sink, washing away the dust of disuse. "I've run out of sugar, do you want me to put honey or...?"

Joohyun nods and he swirls a good amount of honey in her tea.

"The bank called." She takes out the tea bag, placing it on the saucer. Mark watches her with mild interest.

"I figured."

Joohyun looks at him, something in her eyes and Mark thinks that she's finally gonna snap, snarl and bite back. But she doesn't. Joohyun's still as nice as she was before.

"Will you stay the night?" Mark asks her instead and she shakes her head.

"Have to get back before it gets dark. Work tomorrow," she takes a sip from her tea, "but show me around, will you? I've almost forgotten my way around."

He smiles. "Yeah, sure."

As Joohyun leaves, her car veering away, Mark pulls out the untouched bottle of wine from the cupboard and screws it open.

"Drinking alone?"

Donghyuck leans against the door frame, looking at him over thick glasses. Mark silently scoots to the edge of the couch.

"I know it's not my place to say anything, but you're like a fish. So quiet."

Mark chuckles. Donghyuck's socked feet pad against the floor as he inches closer and sits beside him.

"Didn't know you wear glasses," Mark says, voice wobbly. Is he drunk? Maybe. He doesn't know.

"You've seen me, like, three times in total."

"You didn't wear any for the three times I've seen you."

Donghyuck shrugs and pours himself a wine in one of Mark's fancy teacups. It was his father's, a gift sent by an old friend when he first found out he was going to die.

"Have you been living here for a long time?" Donghyuck asks and Mark stares at his throat, eyes half lidded.

"Yeah. Ever since I was born."

"I really like it here. Can I book the room for another week?"

Another one of Donghyuck's whirly signature finds home in Mark's logbook. Slightly different from the last one. He laughs as he picks up the pen, saying he forgot how he signed it. Mark will look at it, study the curves and the edges of his name, taste it out on his tongue, when Donghyuck has gone upstairs to his room.

Mark dreams about his father, that night. Photo montage of the hospital walls, his shadow stretching out on the concrete road. Stench of white.

Hair sticking to his forehead in sweat, Mark takes a deep breath and rolls onto his side.

"How much are you interested in?" Old Man Choi asks and Mark runs his hand across the roof of the truck, shrugging.

"I don't know. How much are you interested in paying?"

He blows a ring of smoke out. "That's an old truck. Won't be too much. In need of a quick cash?"

Mark accepts the cigarette from him and tucks it behind his ears. "I guess you can say that."

"I'll take it, then. Might as well help an old friend out."

Old Man Choi kicks at the wheels. Mark takes the money and leaves quietly, walking back to his house.

The road home is long.

When he gets home, Donghyuck is standing in the kitchen, hair clipped back, pajama pants low on his hips. Mark suddenly worries if he did the dishes before he left or not.

"Sorry, I helped myself. Was hungry."

He nods and puts his keys on the table.

"By the way, your friend dropped by. He was almost going to throw me out. Said he can't believe that you trusted a total stranger alone at your house."

Mark smiles, clicking the bathroom lights on. "As if there's anything you can steal here. The rooms have separate locks."

"I could set your house on fire and flee," he says.

"Would you?" The soap slips out of his hand and Mark bends down to pick it up. Donghyuck pretends to think for a moment.

"I take my words back. You're not like a fish at all."

Mark doesn't live in a touristy, people swarming area. It's not that far from the city, just a few hours if you're willing to push the kilometers per hour limit a little. He sometimes wonders how Donghyuck managed to stumble here in the first place.

Mark tells Joohyun that he sold the truck. Joohyun says nothing.

His father used to joke that Mark was made on the hood of the truck but nobody really believed him, anyway. At least, it should cover the loan thing now.

December comes as the snow storm rises. There's an unspoken agreement between them, pinky promise without a physical form; Donghyuck pays his weekly rent on every Monday and Mark secretly worries about him finally packing his things and leaving on every Sunday. 

"Mom said it's been real hard for the cattle farmers. And it's only December. What are they gonna do in January when it's even more colder?"

Yangyang hops off the counter and breezes past him into the living room.

"They'll manage. They always do," Mark says, stirring the broth before adding vegetables. "How are your parents?"

"They're doing fine. Not many people are coming to the market, though. I already prepared you a gift for Christmas."

Mark blows away some of the dust on the herb shelf. "Don't try to come down the chimney."

"You don't even have a chimney," Yangyang accuses, smiling. "Where's your guest boy?"

"I don't know. He left earlier this morning. Said he was gonna explore around. Soup?"

Yangyang nods and takes a clean bowl from the dish rack.

"Don't you think that he's kind of suspicious?

Mark wipes his hands on his apron. "Why?"

"Like, why is he even here in the first place? Fancy city boy like him," he whispers, dipping a spoon into the bowl.

"I'm not gossiping with you."

Yangyang sighs. "Fine."

  
  
Donghyuck returns that afternoon, cheeks red and bitten by cold. He looks awfully something, Mark doesn't really figure out what, as he smiles and says that cell phone signal isn't that good here. Mark reheats the soup he made and tries to dissect Donghyuck's expression in his head, maybe his eyes look a little unhappy, or the corner of his mouth a bit anxious and his eyebrows are more cautious than usual. He imagines Donghyuck's face over and over again but he never settles on one word to describe it.  
  
  


On Saturday, they do their laundry together. Mark parrots the joke his father told him a few years ago to fill the silence and Donghyuck laughs, knocking the basket down. Mark cherishes the feeling it brings. He pulls a clothes line between the living room door and the kitchen, hanging the clothes one by one.

As Donghyuck's voice wavers, calling out his name, Mark peeks at him from the other side of the clothes line. He waits, pinching the wet fabric of the sweater in his hands. 

The wind rises outside.

Donghyuck lounges forward and the sweater drops on the ground.

Mark's heart beats in his ears. Donghyuck kisses him like the sea, coaxes him open with assurance and calmness, gentle wave of longing.

"Okay?" he whispers and Mark tries to say something, anything, but he can't find the voice to, so he stays quiet and leans in to kiss Donghyuck again. He hopes it's enough of an answer.

That night, Donghyuck holds him in his arms, flattens a palm against his stomach and tells him about the worries he carry, knots in his throat. Uncertainty of the distant future, how his father streaked his skin blue and purple when he found out, how he didn't say goodbye to anyone when he left the city, ticking clocks and something scrawled in chalk on the board. Mark silently offers to shoulder a share of his burdens, even though his heart is equally as heavy. Donghyuck fast asleep beside him, steady and safe, he think that this must be _it_. This must be _love_.

"Get up, Mark. We're going out today."

Donghyuck is peering down at him, glasses sitting snug on his nose and Mark pulls his blanket over his face.

"Do you know this poem? Love poem number one hundred and thirty seven."

Mark peeks his head out. "No."

"I don't remember the author's name but it goes something like this. You say _'can't we just sleep in'_ and I'll say _'no, trust me, you don't want to miss a thing'_. Got it?" Donghyuck says, his elbow digging uncomfortably into Mark's side.

"Got it."

"Okay, go."

Mark clears his throat, eyes still closed.

"Can't we just sleep in?"

Donghyuck smiles. Small but still dazzling.

"No, trust me. You don't want to miss a thing."

Donghyuck takes him to the river. The water has a thin layer of ice on top, not completely frozen and white puffs of steam comes out of his mouth when he laughs. 

"I was dating this boy in college, you know," he says, staring down at the naked ground. "Just before I left the city, we broke up."

Mark tightens the woolen scarf around his neck.

"I hope you don't feel like you're kissing the remainder of the pieces he left behind. I like to think I'm still whole."

The clouds move around them. Mark swallows. 

Yangyang leaves a jar full of homemade jam on his window sill as a Christmas gift along with a greeting card. _"For when you're sick and I'm not around"_ the card reads.

"I was going to make pancakes but the milk has gone bad, I think. Smells funny."

"It's the thunder," Mark says, not looking up from his book. Donghyuck is still holding the milk bottle.

"What?" He moves to sit on the couch, beside Mark. The late sun peeks through the window and stumbles into the room, golden and unafraid.

"Thunder spoils milk. Really common superstition around here, almost everyone believes it. Kind of obligatory, really."

"But it's winter. There's no thunder. Are you still stuck in August or something?" Donghyuck asks with a teasing lilt, and Mark stills. His hand hovers over the thick literature book on his lap for a moment before closing it in one swift movement.

"No, I moved on," he says, "I moved on."

Mark dreams about his father again. But this time when he wakes up, Donghyuck's beside him.

Joohyun calls him on the New Year's Eve. She sounds tipsy and there's a male voice on the line with her but Mark can't make out what he's saying no matter how hard he tries. They haven't talked for weeks.

"Happy New Year, Mark," she says and the male voice giggles. "Don't beat yourself up for your father's death. It was bound to happen, wasn't it?"

Mark's heart sinks.

"The money you sent wasn't enough, by the way. But it's fine now. I took care of it. I always take care of it."

He looks at the picture on the wall. Mark doesn't know when the frame has started to crack.

"Yangyang seems to like you a lot," Donghyuck comments, moving the kitchen scissors around in his hands. Mark looks at him in the mirror.

"He's my friend."

"I know." Donghyuck cuts his hair with delicacy and care and kisses his forehead when he's done. Mark chews his bottom lip, not daring to look up.

Later that day, Donghyuck works him up in the kitchen.

"Is there anything your hands can't do?" Mark asks, head thrown back. Donghyuck bites down a laugh, his wrist flicking in erratic motion.

"You're so putty in my hands," he says as Mark jerks his hips forward, hiding his face in Donghyuck's chest. "You do anything I say without questioning."

Mark idly notes the telephone ringing but he's far too gone to get up now, anyway.

"I decided to change my major to agriculture. After my gap year ends, I mean."

Donghyuck is haphazardly spinning himself on the kitchen stool. Mark told him to stop several times already.

"Ah, really? Wouldn't your parents disagree?"

Mark spreads butter on a slice of bread and puts blueberry jam over it before holding it up for Donghyuck to take a bite.

"They would, probably. But I just love it here. I love the field. I love you."

Mark feels his stomach churning. Like a pearl necklace snapping, spilling everywhere, the beads glimmering and white. Coming undone after one another.

"Don't do that to me, Hyuck."

He frowns. "I'm not doing anything to you."

Mark leans back and closes his eyes. Something dances on the back of his eyelids.

Donghyuck says he loves him again the same day. Mark doesn't say it back.

On the first day of spring, Mark plants his first batch of beets and Donghyuck starts packing. _"I overstayed my welcome,"_ he quietly laughs and Mark aches and _aches_.

Yangyang comes over to help him with the beet seeds, soaking them in warm water to soften the shells. When Mark finally cries on his shoulder, he doesn't ask what's wrong.

"We'll meet again," Donghyuck says, his voice tender as Mark makes tea for him one last time. He wants to wrench his heart out and hold it up for Donghyuck to take, but there are things that aren't supposed to be said out aloud. "I'll come visit you."

He cradles Mark's face in his hands and kisses him, relentlessly mouthing _"love me, love me, love me"_ against his cheek.

Love poem number one hundred and thirty seven.

He waits.

Mark learns that big cities don't grieve the absence of one. He tries calling Donghyuck but he never picks up.

Months pass and Mark pulls his hair in a ponytail. Yangyang tells him that he quite likes how he looks.

Mark starts selling his vegetables on Yangyang's parents' market. The neighboring ladies always coo at him, saying _"such a hardworking young boy, you are"_ and Mark makes sure to smile back. He doesn't really know if they do it for the discount.

Mark actually goes to the city once. By any blind luck, he thought he could find Donghyuck there.

In a city that's not his, Mark rides the subway. Every stranger looks like Donghyuck to him. He rides the subway and sits on five different street benches. There's a small crowd circling a busker with a tambourine and Mark listens to him sing for a while. He doesn't remember where he heard that voice before.

Mark thinks about visiting Joohyun but he realizes that he doesn't even know where she lives, far too late.

And the day after Mark returns from the city, Yangyang wakes up to find a package on his door step, neatly wrapped, his name written in an achingly familiar way. _"Late Christmas gift"_ , it reads.

He opens the package. It's a shiny new violin with a matching bow.

Months pass. Love stands still as Mark waits.

**Author's Note:**

> title from a poem by li-young lee.


End file.
